Wednesday, December 31, 2014

(Reuters) - A prominent opposition blogger in Cuba said her husband was
freed by the authorities overnight but several dissidents were still in
custody on Wednesday, a day after they were arrested in a move that drew
condemnation from the United States.

The detentions in the Cuban capital were the most significant crackdown
on the opposition on the communist-led island since Havana and
Washington agreed on Dec. 17 to restore diplomatic ties and end more
than 50 years of hostility.

Yoani Sanchez, who said her husband Reinaldo Escobar had been taken away
in handcuffs along with another activist, said Escobar returned home
overnight. She thanked well-wishers for their support but said several
dissidents were still held.

"It's Dec. 31 and there are families which cannot celebrate together,"
Sanchez wrote on Twitter. "We continue to protest on behalf of those who
are still in detention."

About 12 activists were taken away by police officers, while others were
instructed not to leave their homes, said Elizardo Sanchez, the leader
of a dissident human rights commission that monitors such detentions.

Tuesday's action by the authorities came ahead of a planned
open-microphone event in the capital's Revolution Square, at which
activists were going to speak about their vision for Cuba.

The organizer of the event, which flopped after the detentions when only
a handful of people showed up, was performance artist Tania Bruguera.
She had vowed to go ahead with the event even after Cuban officials
denied her a permit.

On Tuesday, Bruguera also went missing, and Sanchez said her husband saw
her at the police station where he was held. That could not immediately
be confirmed by Reuters.

Cuba's government had denounced the plans for the open-microphone event
as "political provocation."

Responding to the first major test of U.S. President Barack Obama's
policy shift toward Havana, the U.S. State Department said in a
statement that it was deeply concerned by the detentions.

"We strongly condemn the Cuban government's continued harassment and
repeated use of arbitrary detention, at times with violence, to silence
critics, disrupt peaceful assembly and freedom expression, and
intimidate citizens," it said.

Obama has said Cubans should not face harassment or arrest for
expressing their views, and that Washington would continue to monitor
human rights on the island.

Contacted by phone at her home, the director of 14ymedio, Yoani
Sanchez, said that Tania Bruguera was under arrest at the Acosta Police
Station in the Diez de Octubre municipality in Havana.

Reinaldo Escobar was released from the same station Tuesday night at
10:00 pm. Escobar affirmed that he saw Tania "wearing the gray uniform
of a convict," It is still unknown when Bruguera will be released.

The two police cars surrounding Yoani Sanchez's building have been
removed and the director of this digital daily is no longer under house
arrest.

The 14ymedio reporter Victor Ariel Gonzalez is still being detained, in
Guanabacoa. The whereabouts of Eliecer Avila, the photographer Claudio
Fuentes and his partner, Eva Baquero remain unknown. Antonio Rodiles of
Estados de Sats also remains in custody.

These detentions were carried out to impede several activists from
participating in a performance organized by Tania Bruguera titled
"Tatlin's Whisper #6" to demand freedom of expression for Cuban's
citizens scheduled for December 30th.

(Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday condemned what it called
Cuba's practice of repression following the detention of several
activists, in the first major test of President Barack Obama's policy
shift toward normalizing relations with the communist-ruled island.

The State Department said it was deeply concerned by the detention on
Tuesday of several "peaceful civil society members and activists" by the
Cuban authorities.

"We strongly condemn the Cuban government's continued harassment and
repeated use of arbitrary detention, at times with violence, to silence
critics, disrupt peaceful assembly and freedom expression, and
intimidate citizens," the State Department said in a statement.

"We urge the government of Cuba to end its practice of repressing these
and other internationally protected freedoms and to respect the
universal human rights of Cuban citizens," it added.

The arrests marked the most significant crackdown on the opposition
since Cuba and the United States agreed on Dec. 17 to restore diplomatic
ties and put behind them more than five decades of hostility.

About 12 opponents were taken away by police, including the husband of
opposition blogger Yoani Sanchez, while several others were told not to
leave their homes as police parked outside, said Elizardo Sanchez,
leader of a dissident human rights commission that monitors such detentions.

Other dissident leaders reported multiple detentions or that activists
were ordered to stay at home. Yoani Sanchez's website 14ymedia.comreported she was under virtual house arrest.

The detentions stopped a planned open microphone event at Havana's
Revolution Square, near the government headquarters.

Event organizer Tania Bruguera, a performance artist, was missing and
her associates presumed she, too, had been detained. Bruguera had vowed
to go ahead with the event even after Cuban officials denied her a permit.

The event flopped, with only 15 participants, surrounded by a phalanx of
reporters. A parallel event in Miami called by Cuban exiles drew 50 people.

Cuba had called the open microphone event a "political provocation," and
it was unclear how long the dissidents would be held. Cuba typically
holds dissidents for several hours and releases them.

"The United States will continue to press the Cuban government to uphold
its international obligations and to respect the rights of Cubans to
peacefully assemble and express their ideas and opinions," the State
Department said.

Earlier, Roberta Jacobson, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for
Western Hemisphere Affairs, said on Twitter: "Freedom of expression
remains of U.S. policy on Cuba; we support activists exercising those
rights and condemn today's detentions."

Jacobsen is due to lead a U.S. delegation to Havana in January to begin
normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba that had been severed since 1961.

Yoani Sanchez said on Twitter police detained her husband Reinaldo
Escobar and dissident leader Eliecer Avila outside her home in Havana,
taking them away in handcuffs.

Escobar is editor-in-chief of the dissident news and opinion website
14ymedio.com and Avila is the leader of the opposition group Somos Mas
(We Are More).

Upon announcing his new Cuba policy, Obama said Cubans should not face
harassment or arrest for expressing their views and that his government
would continue to monitor human rights.

The deal on renewing ties included a prisoner swap in which the United
States freed three Cuban spies and Cuba agreed to release U.S. aid
contractor Alan Gross, a Cuban who spied for Washington, and 53 people
who the United States considers political prisoners.

So far, the 53 have not been identified and dissident groups say none of
their activists has been released since the Dec. 17 announcement.

(Reuters) - Cuban police detained at least four political opponents on
Tuesday, including the husband of prominent blogger Yoani Sanchez, hours
before a performance artist planned to stage an unauthorized open
microphone event, dissidents said.

They would be the highest profile detentions since Cuba and the United
States agreed on Dec. 17 to normalize diplomatic relations and put
behind more than five decades of hostility.

President Barack Obama said then that Cubans should not face harassment
or arrest for expressing their views and that his government would
continue to monitor human rights on the communist-ruled island.

Sanchez said on Twitter that police detained her husband Reinaldo
Escobar and dissident leader Eliecer Avila outside her home in Havana,
taking them away handcuffed in a patrol car.

Escobar is editor-in-chief of the dissident news and opinion website
14ymedio.com and Avila is the leader of the opposition group Somos Mas
(We Are More).

Other dissident leaders said at least two more government opponents were
being held by police, and others appeared to be restricted to their homes.

President Raul Castro has praised Obama for changing U.S. policy on Cuba
but he also warned that opponents to Cuba's government may try to
undermine progress toward better relations.

A government official could not immediately confirm the reports of
detentions on Tuesday. Officials had denounced the planned open
microphone event as a political provocation.

The organizer of the event, Tania Bruguera, could not be reached by
telephone in Havana. Her sister in Italy said she had lost contact with
Bruguera on Monday, and nobody answered the door at the Havana residence
where Bruguera was staying.

Reached at her home, Sanchez declined to comment on reports from another
dissident leader that she was being held inside her home.

A Reuters reporter saw a police car with two officers and an Interior
Minister official parked outside her apartment building.

"I have spoken to Yoani and she says her intention is not to confront
them," said Jose Daniel Ferrer, leader of another dissident group, the
Cuban Patriotic Union.

The leader of the dissident group Ladies in White said some of their
activists also had police stationed outside their homes, that another
was detained, and another detained and released.

Bruguera planned the open microphone event at Havana's Revolution Square
as a test of the government's tolerance for dissent. Cuban officials
denied a permit but she pledged to go ahead with it.

No event took place at the appointed hour of 3 p.m. (2000 GMT).

Cuban police often detain political opponents for a few hours or days
and then release them.

The deal on renewing diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United
States was reached after 18 months of secret talks.

It included a prisoner swap in which the United States freed three Cuban
spies and Cuba agreed to release U.S. aid contractor Alan Gross, a Cuban
who spied for Washington, and 53 people who the United States considers
political prisoners.

So far, none of those 53 have been identified and dissident groups say
none of their activists have been released since the Dec. 17 announcement.

Obama's critics in the United States have complained that Cuba does not
deserve a softer U.S. policy as long as it continues to control the
media and repress political opponents under a one-party system.

"Given that political arrests continue and that Yoani Sanchez just
tweeted that her husband was arrested this morning, how will the Obama
administration engage on these issues?" Senator Robert Menendez, a
Democrat from New Jersey who supports a hard line against Havana, said
in a statement on Tuesday.

On balance, it was probably a good idea to move forward with a new
relationship with Cuba. The Castros are old, getting older and will soon
be gone – and it's doubtful that the Cuban people will choose,
voluntarily of course, to succeed them with another such family dynasty.
When the Castros are finally gone, there likely will be a muffled
internal insurrection or two, as the competing factions for power seek
to kill each other off – and there is likely to be a period of
uncertainty before the emergence of a new personality that can coalesce
a central government. The most likely successor will probably come from
the military. No real surprises here.

During the coming next few years, we really don't have to actually do
much to influence the people of Cuba except inundate them with our
media, social or otherwise, movies, TV, investments, business, travel,
sports teams, tourism and the Internet. They continue to be huge
consumers of American culture and capitalism will creep into their lives
whether they want it or not, and no matter what the Castro government
says or does to keep it out. In short, President Raul Castro can say
that they will remain Communist all he wants, but that system will not
be able to sustain itself in the face of the onslaught of American
commercialism. Like the old Soviet Union, Cuba will soon implode from
American and Western cultural influence – especially as they realize how
poor they have become compared to their neighbors from

What do we want from them? Cigars and resorts for our tourists? Not a
whole lot really, nor do we need much of anything to let the natural
symbiosis of the new relationship work out in our favor. In short, it
will happen, and it will be to our advantage – especially after Raul is
gone, just as Fidel is already mostly out of the picture.

So is that the end of the story with Cuba?

Not by a long shot, because we must now prepare ourselves for an
onslaught of hundreds, perhaps thousands of Cuban spies. And I have bad
news for you – they are very, very good at it, probably the best in our
hemisphere, including us, who look like amateurs compared to them,
especially when it comes to the long-term penetration of high-value
intelligence targets and getting critical information therefrom. In my
day, the Cubans were thought to be every bit as good as the East
Germans, who were probably the best in the world, next to the Israelis,
of course.

It is not surprising, therefore, that part of the deal we made to
establish the new relationship was to release three members of the
notorious "Cuban Five" from federal prison, one of them serving multiple
life sentences for espionage and murder.

The Cuban Five, if you may remember, were a group of spies who
successfully penetrated the Brothers to the Rescue and other
Cuban-American groups in the U.S. that advocated overthrow of the Castro
regime. The FBI broke them up in the late 90's and they were all
sentenced to prison. While there is lots of controversy surrounding
them, the Cuban government later acknowledged that the five were
intelligence agents.

The record of Cuban spies in our country is long and of major concern to
our counterintelligence services and agencies. While the Chinese, just
for example, are probably the largest and most prolific spies in our
country, the Cubans make up for it with their specialized skills and
knowledge of American social structures.

So one can only hope that an essential part of the new relationship with
Cuba will also be an aggressive counterintelligence program on our part
to protect ourselves from Cuban spies. And Cuba's spying program will no
doubt also be enhanced by the Castro government as it expands its
ability to gather national security information against us, both in Cuba
and in the United States.

I say "only hope" because counterintelligence has long remained the
unwanted step-child of our intelligence community, despite some new
attention to its organization and structure. It remains to be seen,
however, whether we have really improved our ability to actually catch
spies, both outside and inside our government. And the Cubans, because
of their consummate skills and abilities to penetrate our most sensitive
targets, will no doubt be able to decide this for themselves – and
probably before we realize it.

My father hates the decision to normalize relations with Cuba, but I'm
looking forward to a new start with the country of my birth

In announcing his decision to normalize relations with Cuba, President
Barack Obama explained the relationship between the two nations with a
saying very common among Cubans: No es fácil—it's not easy.

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After more than a half-century of unresolved geopolitical tension,
Cubans both on the island and in exile have adopted the saying to
describe any struggle, from the mundane to the complex. In Miami, some
call it the "Cuban Condition" – nothing can be simple. We are all so
diverse in our interpretation of the same events, yet so unified in our
pride and passion for a country some haven't seen in half a century,
many never at all.

I was born in Cuba, but grew up en el exilio, in exile, in Miami. I
lived among the old guard that fled immediately after Fidel Castro took
over in 1959; those who stayed on for a few years before being
disillusioned; those who hung on to their island for a decade, or two,
or three, before fleeing; and others, like me, the children of those
generations. Where you are woven in this great Cuban-American tapestry
influences how you feel about what the President announced last week.

I don't remember Cuba. All my life, I've heard about an island
—described with such nostalgia—that Castro ruthlessly tore apart. To
hear my parents and their peers describe a pre-Castro Cuba is to hear an
eyewitness account of Eden itself: the houses were sturdier, the food
tasted better, the streets were safer, and the ocean breeze was cooler.

My father was 19 when the Revolution drove another dictator, Fulgencio
Batista, out of power. He openly admits—as many of his generation
do—that he helped in that ousting, by causing disruptions and
participating in civil disobedience. His brother—my uncle—was sent
packing to France after setting fire to the last row of a movie theater.
My father was never so brazen, but they believed that Batista was
corrupt and tyrannical, and considered Castro their savior. My mother,
on the other hand, was just 11 when Castro came to power, and was the
first generation to be inducted into La Juventud Rebelde—the communist
youth—and educated to venerate the pantheon of Mao Zedong, Vladimir
Lenin, and Karl Marx – along with the one constant in Cuban history
claimed by all, José Marti.

My mother's first disillusionment came early on, when she was asked why
she never reported to a government-required volunteer activity.

"Porque no me dió la gana," she answered. Because I didn't feel like it.
She was always a little hard-headed, a trait that didn't set you up for
a successful trajectory within the Communist Party.

Her disillusionment deepened when her dream of being a grade-school
teacher was dashed as she was forced to become a veterinarian. The
government's new five-year economic plan called for more emphasis on
agriculture and all that the industry required.

My mother resisted any urge to leave. At the time, leaving the island
was considered an act of defection, and there would be no turning back.
Leaving her family behind was unconscionable.

Then my mother met my father, also a veterinarian. Two years later, I
was born. Suddenly the food rations, the lines to get rice and the meal
plans all became increasingly difficult to bear. Still, when the Mariel
boatlift opened the doors for anyone to leave the island, my parents
stayed. My mother still couldn't leave her family. My father, whose
entire family had already left, couldn't convince her.

The trigger for her coming around, and deciding to leave, was not a
traumatic, high-drama moment, but rather an everyday scene, starring
yours truly. I was all of two, eating a slice of ham. I asked for more,
but there was no more to give. The rations only allowed for so much. My
mother realized Cuba was no place to raise me.

As the story goes, the following months were agonizing. Thanks to my
father's French lineage, my parents were able to claim political asylum
in France. But actually getting off the island took nearly a year. When
the Cuban government learned of my parents' desire to leave, they fired
my father from his veterinary job and reassigned him to work in a
construction site. He broke two ribs before word came that our
application had been approved.

We lived in France for six years before making our way to Miami. My
mother eventually was able to bring her mother from Cuba a decade later,
and always hoped that she would one day also be reunited with the
brother and four sisters that remained on the island.

Neither of them ever saw these relatives again, though there were years
of grainy, bittersweet phone calls filled with hopeful talk of the
impending reunion. My grandmother died in 2003. My mother, this May. My
father, whose family has all since left the island, has never been as
emotional about leaving his home, however. He's kept memories alive by
endlessly telling stories about the Eden that he remembers, debating
every tweak in American policy, and lamenting the mistakes of his
generation.

I'm often asked about my own journey; whether I've ever been back to
Cuba, for example. I'm often told how beautiful it is by people who have
visited – how everyone should experience it before the government
changes, and the country's "frozen in time" quality disappears. And all
I can think about are the countless hours—at the dinner table, at
parties, in the car—of my parents reminiscing about the past and
complaining about how their country has crumbled. It became deafening,
as if an entire people had become obsessed with one singular topic,
never able to move past it and start anew. Like my parents, I've never
returned. They believed that going back would be a sign of support for
an immoral and corrupt government, and that any money they spent there
would go in support of the dictatorship. And they wanted no part of it.
Neither did I. I've always believed that the best way to honor their
sacrifices was to honor their beliefs. It never seemed right to return
to a place that my parents fought so hard to leave just to give me a
better life.

Eventually, I do remember my parents shifting their tune. Sentences
stopped beginning with "Cuando Fidel se cae," once Fidel topples, and
ending rather with the notion that the Cuba they remember will never
again exist. At least with my parents, the harsh reality that exile was
not going to be temporary finally set in.

I struggled with a swirl of mixed emotions at this month's news. My
initial reaction was to hold on to my parents' anger, as a way of
acknowledging their suffering. But, like my parents came to realize,
there are emotions and then there's the reality. The status quo has not
only failed, but also frustrated a people who hoped regime change was
always right around the corner.

And now that I live in L.A., I realize the complexity of the Cuban
experience is lost anywhere north of South Florida. It's like I am exile
not from one, but from two, surreal islands: Cuba itself, and the
displaced Cuban alternative in Miami. It would be unthinkable there to
have someone come up to me and talk about how amazing Cuba currently is,
but I actually hear it quite often here. Now I marvel that such a small
island has held the attention of every president since Kennedy.

Though my father has mellowed in his old age—he's nearly 85—it's no
surprise that he fervently disagrees with me. For him, there is no
compromising, no negotiating with this regime. My mother, however,
would've welcomed this news. The idea of an American embassy in Cuba is
tantalizing, the idea of the American flag flying again in Havana should
inspire the Cuban people that hope is just 90 miles away. And for me, it
will be a welcome reminder that this home I left over a defiant demand
for more ham is not as distant, and aberrant, as it has felt.

Jean-Paul Renaud is the director of communications for the UCLA College.
Prior to entering higher education, Renaud was a reporter for the Los
Angeles Times and the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He wrote this for
Zocalo Public Square. Zocalo Public Square is a not-for-profit Ideas
Exchange that blends live events and humanities journalism.

Alfonso Morre has spent nine years studying mechanics and civil
engineering in order to become -- a Havana taxi driver. Following
President Barack Obama's decision to ease the embargo on Cuba, he is
hoping for something better.

Driving a 26-year-old Russian-made Lada through the cobbled streets of
Cuba's capital, Morre says he needs his engineering degree just to keep
the car on the road. That may be about to change.

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"Hopefully, once the U.S. trade opens up, companies will come here
looking for engineers," Morre, 33, said. "Once the new cars and spare
parts start coming in, you won't need to be an engineer to run a taxi here."

Morre is one of the army of university-educated Cubans stuck in manual
jobs such as hotel laundry or waitering. Their skills will be a big draw
for companies looking for investment opportunities in the island should
the U.S. agree to end the trade embargo that started in 1961, said
Philip Brenner, a professor of international relations at American
University in Washington.

"The Cuban development model is going to be based on high value-added
production by an educated population," Brenner said. "No one in Cuba is
talking about a future scenario of making baseballs in sweatshops. They
have people who would be adept in pharmaceuticals, computer engineering
and advanced mechanical machinery."

Cuba's economic growth has slowed to 1.3 percent this year, almost half
the official target and down from 2.7 percent in 2013, according to
government data.

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Pajama Factory
Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced the plans to
re-establish diplomatic ties, release some prisoners and work to ease a
five-decade old embargo on Dec. 17.

Laundry lady Lucila Gomez, 62, hopes the move will lead to the
re-opening of the pajama factory she used to supervise in Havana. After
getting a degree at Moscow State Textile University and working in
Bulgaria, Gomez now irons tourist shirts in the Havana Libre hotel.

"Hopefully I won't have to end my career doing laundry," she said.

Decades of Soviet investment in Cuba's education system have brought
universal literacy to the island, with about 100,000 people trained at
Russian and Ukrainian universities out of a population of 11.3 million.

Eighty percent of college-aged Cubans were enrolled in post-secondary
education in 2011, the highest in Latin America and the Caribbean,
compared with 75 percent in Argentina, 71 percent in Chile and 29
percent for Mexico, according to the United Nations.

Staying Afloat
There is a special focus on hard sciences like medicine and engineering,
an investment in human capital that has helped the country stay afloat
since the end of subsidies from the Soviet Union. About 30,000 Cuban
doctors work in Venezuela to help pay for the approximately 100,000
barrels a day of oil the South American country supplied to Cuba in 2013.

"The level of academic preparation here is very high," Piza said in an
interview in his office in the Fifth of September plant on Dec. 29.
"Education allows Cubans to be ingenious with the little they have
available."

In the rusty plant, dust covered workers were welding together hand-made
metal parts of sugar cane grinders on a December afternoon.

Better Prepared
Alexandre Carpenter, co-president of cigarette and cigar-maker Brascuba
SA, has a similar impression to Piza. On the factory floor, a quarter of
the Cubans have a college degree, while for the company as a whole the
figure is 46 percent, Carpenter said by phone from Brazil.

Brascuba, a joint venture between Rio de Janeiro-based Souza Cruz SA and
Tabacuba, employs 500 people on the island, of which 492 are Cubans.

"The Cuban workforce is a key point for investment in the country,"
Carpenter said. "When you're installing a new machine, for example, you
have high-level discussions with the engineers. They are much more
prepared than the average Brazilian worker."

Sugar plant manager Piza said the challenge is to attract younger
workers prepared to work on state salaries of about $20 a month and to
train them to work with modern technology and profit-making mentality.

"It's difficult to motivate workers to be productive on the kind of
money we can offer," he said.

Better Off
Cuban migrants into the U.S. have benefited from their higher
educational levels.

Cuban-born residents earn 20 percent more on average than the Hispanic
population overall and are more likely to own their home, according to
2011 census data cited by the Washington-based Pew Research Center.
About two million Hispanics of Cuban origin live in the U.S., with 70
percent in Florida.

Jodi Bond, vice president for the Americas at the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, said U.S. companies are likely to step up lobbying for
Congress to end the embargo on Cuba, opening the door to investment.

"They will actively work to lift the embargo," Bond said in a telephone
interview from Washington. "There's potential for explosive growth,
opportunities for engineers and collaboration in the health, technology
and telecommunications industries. Much of that may move slowly, but the
companies see a lot of promise."

(Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday condemned what it called
Cuba's practice of repression following the detention of several
activists, in the first major test of President Barack Obama's policy
shift toward normalizing relations with the communist-ruled island.

The State Department said it was deeply concerned by the detention on
Tuesday of several "peaceful civil society members and activists" by the
Cuban authorities.

"We strongly condemn the Cuban government's continued harassment and
repeated use of arbitrary detention, at times with violence, to silence
critics, disrupt peaceful assembly and freedom expression, and
intimidate citizens," the State Department said in a statement.

"We urge the government of Cuba to end its practice of repressing these
and other internationally protected freedoms and to respect the
universal human rights of Cuban citizens," it added.

The arrests marked the most significant crackdown on the opposition
since Cuba and the United States agreed on Dec. 17 to restore diplomatic
ties and put behind them more than five decades of hostility.

About 12 opponents were taken away by police, including the husband of
opposition blogger Yoani Sanchez, while several others were told not to
leave their homes as police parked outside, said Elizardo Sanchez,
leader of a dissident human rights commission that monitors such detentions.

Other dissident leaders reported multiple detentions or that activists
were ordered to stay at home. Yoani Sanchez's website 14ymedia.comreported she was under virtual house arrest.

The detentions stopped a planned open microphone event at Havana's
Revolution Square, near the government headquarters.

Event organizer Tania Bruguera, a performance artist, was missing and
her associates presumed she, too, had been detained. Bruguera had vowed
to go ahead with the event even after Cuban officials denied her a permit.

The event flopped, with only 15 participants, surrounded by a phalanx of
reporters. A parallel event in Miami called by Cuban exiles drew 50 people.

Cuba had called the open microphone event a "political provocation," and
it was unclear how long the dissidents would be held. Cuba typically
holds dissidents for several hours and releases them.

"The United States will continue to press the Cuban government to uphold
its international obligations and to respect the rights of Cubans to
peacefully assemble and express their ideas and opinions," the State
Department said.

Earlier, Roberta Jacobson, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for
Western Hemisphere Affairs, said on Twitter: "Freedom of expression
remains of U.S. policy on Cuba; we support activists exercising those
rights and condemn today's detentions."

Jacobsen is due to lead a U.S. delegation to Havana in January to begin
normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba that had been severed since 1961.

Yoani Sanchez said on Twitter police detained her husband Reinaldo
Escobar and dissident leader Eliecer Avila outside her home in Havana,
taking them away in handcuffs.

Escobar is editor-in-chief of the dissident news and opinion website
14ymedio.com and Avila is the leader of the opposition group Somos Mas
(We Are More).

Upon announcing his new Cuba policy, Obama said Cubans should not face
harassment or arrest for expressing their views and that his government
would continue to monitor human rights.

The deal on renewing ties included a prisoner swap in which the United
States freed three Cuban spies and Cuba agreed to release U.S. aid
contractor Alan Gross, a Cuban who spied for Washington, and 53 people
who the United States considers political prisoners.

So far, the 53 have not been identified and dissident groups say none of
their activists has been released since the Dec. 17 announcement.

HAVANA — Cuban officials arrested at least three members of the
political opposition Tuesday ahead of a protest art performance seen as
the first major test of the government's tolerance for dissent since the
declaration of detente with the U.S.

Expatriate artist Tania Bruguera returned to Cuba Friday with plans to
set up an open microphone for anyone to speak on the Plaza of the
Revolution, a square overlooked by the president's office, military
headquarters and huge portraits of revolutionary heroes Che Guevara and
Camilo Cienfuegos.

Hours before the planned performance, police arrested at least three
well-known dissidents and calls stopped going through to Bruguera's
cellphone. Her supporters said they did not know where she was and
police prevented an Associated Press reporter from approaching the door
of her Havana apartment.

By 4 p.m., an hour after the scheduled protest in the symbolic heart of
government authority, few people had appeared in the plaza.

Inside Cuba, where the rate of Internet usage is among the world's
lowest, few ordinary citizens appeared to know about Bruguera's plans in
the absence of state television, radio and newspaper coverage. Some
opposition members who did know about the event said beforehand that
they weren't certain about going because they saw it as unnecessarily
provocative. Others said authorities had warned them to stay away.

In the end, with Bruguera absent, the event failed to materialize as
promised.

The day's events appeared to be at least a short-term victory for the
government of Cuban President Raul Castro, who pledged this month that
the U.S.-Cuban detente both nations announced on Dec. 17 would not lead
to changes in the island's single-party system. Cuba's government has
long narrowly defined the bounds of acceptable speech, accusing many
dissidents of being agents of the U.S. government or right-wing exile
groups, and subjecting them to surveillance, temporary detention and
harassment.

President Barack Obama pledged this month that easing the embargo on
Cuba and normalizing diplomatic relations would be a better way of
supporting Cuban civil society. Some experts said that lessening
U.S.-Cuban tensions would remove a pretext for repression of domestic
critics.

But Obama also said he was "under no illusion about the continued
barriers to freedom that remain for ordinary Cubans," and U.S. diplomats
cautioned about expecting major short-term changes.

"Freedom of expression remains core of US policy on Cuba; we support
activists exercising those rights and condemn today's detentions,"
Roberta Jacobson, the assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western
Hemisphere affairs, tweeted on Tuesday.

Dissident Antonio Rodiles told The AP by telephone that police were
taking him away around 12:30 p.m. The wife of Eliecer Avila, the
29-year-old head of moderate opposition group "Somos Mas," told the AP
he had also been arrested along with Reinaldo Escobar, husband of
renowned blogger Yoani Sanchez

Rodiles' group publicly supported Bruguera's performance plan. It wasn't
immediately clear if Escobar and Avila had planned to attend.

Avila had told the AP Monday that he was optimistic that the warming of
relations with Washington would lead to positive changes inside Cuba.

"In my case I am fully convinced that the new scenario can be positive
for civil society," he said.

We are deeply concerned about the latest reports of detentions and
arrests by Cuban authorities of peaceful civil society members and
activists, including Luis Quintana Rodriguez, Antonio Rodiles, Danilo
Maldonado, Reinaldo Escobar, Marcelino Abreu Bonora and Eliecer Avila.
We strongly condemn the Cuban government's continued harassment and
repeated use of arbitrary detention, at times with violence, to silence
critics, disrupt peaceful assembly and freedom expression, and
intimidate citizens.

Freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly are internationally
recognized human rights, and the Cuban government's lack of respect for
these rights, as demonstrated by today's detentions, is inconsistent
with Hemispheric norms and commitments. We urge the Government of Cuba
to end its practice of repressing these and other internationally
protected freedoms and to respect the universal human rights of Cuban
citizens.

We have always said we would continue to speak out about human rights,
and as part of the process of normalization of diplomatic relations, the
United States will continue to press the Cuban government to uphold its
international obligations and to respect the rights of Cubans to
peacefully assemble and express their ideas and opinions, just like
their fellow members of civil society throughout the Americas are
allowed to do.

(Reuters) - Cuban police detained at least four political opponents on
Tuesday, including the husband of prominent blogger Yoani Sanchez, hours
before a performance artist planned to stage an unauthorized open
microphone event, dissidents said.

They would be the highest profile detentions since Cuba and the United
States agreed on Dec. 17 to normalize diplomatic relations and put
behind more than five decades of hostility.

President Barack Obama said then that Cubans should not face harassment
or arrest for expressing their views and that his government would
continue to monitor human rights on the communist-ruled island.

Sanchez said on Twitter that police detained her husband Reinaldo
Escobar and dissident leader Eliecer Avila outside her home in Havana,
taking them away handcuffed in a patrol car.

Escobar is editor-in-chief of the dissident news and opinion website
14ymedio.com and Avila is the leader of the opposition group Somos Mas
(We Are More).

Other dissident leaders said at least two more government opponents were
being held by police, and others appeared to be restricted to their homes.

President Raul Castro has praised Obama for changing U.S. policy on Cuba
but he also warned that opponents to Cuba's government may try to
undermine progress toward better relations.

A government official could not immediately confirm the reports of
detentions on Tuesday. Officials had denounced the planned open
microphone event as a political provocation.

The organizer of the event, Tania Bruguera, could not be reached by
telephone in Havana. Her sister in Italy said she had lost contact with
Bruguera on Monday, and nobody answered the door at the Havana residence
where Bruguera was staying.

Reached at her home, Sanchez declined to comment on reports from another
dissident leader that she was being held inside her home.

A Reuters reporter saw a police car with two officers and an Interior
Minister official parked outside her apartment building.

"I have spoken to Yoani and she says her intention is not to confront
them," said Jose Daniel Ferrer, leader of another dissident group, the
Cuban Patriotic Union.

The leader of the dissident group Ladies in White said some of their
activists also had police stationed outside their homes, that another
was detained, and another detained and released.

Bruguera planned the open microphone event at Havana's Revolution Square
as a test of the government's tolerance for dissent. Cuban officials
denied a permit but she pledged to go ahead with it.

No event took place at the appointed hour of 3 p.m. (2000 GMT).

Cuban police often detain political opponents for a few hours or days
and then release them.

The deal on renewing diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United
States was reached after 18 months of secret talks.

It included a prisoner swap in which the United States freed three Cuban
spies and Cuba agreed to release U.S. aid contractor Alan Gross, a Cuban
who spied for Washington, and 53 people who the United States considers
political prisoners.

So far, none of those 53 have been identified and dissident groups say
none of their activists have been released since the Dec. 17 announcement.

Obama's critics in the United States have complained that Cuba does not
deserve a softer U.S. policy as long as it continues to control the
media and repress political opponents under a one-party system.

"Given that political arrests continue and that Yoani Sanchez just
tweeted that her husband was arrested this morning, how will the Obama
administration engage on these issues?" Senator Robert Menendez, a
Democrat from New Jersey who supports a hard line against Havana, said
in a statement on Tuesday.

Cuban authorities arrested dissidents, independent journalists and a
well-known artist Tuesday in an apparent attempt to block a rally in
Havana's revolutionary square organized by a new movement that calls
itself #YoTambienExijo (I also demand).

Among those detained were journalist Reinaldo Escobar, editor of the
online 14ymedio publication and husband of prominent blogger Yoani
Sánchez; Eliecer Ávila, an activist; and Antonio Rodiles, who directs a
human rights group called Estado de Sats. Sánchez, who founded 14ymedio,
reported the arrests on Twitter.

Sánchez said she was placed under house arrest and also reported that
several other 14ymedio contributors were visited by State Security
officers and warned not to cover the event, which was scheduled to take
place at 3 p.m. at the Plaza de la Revolución.

The demonstration called for participants to go before a microphone for
one minute to share their thoughts, concerns or ideas about how Cuba's
future should unfold.

Several opponents and independent journalists said they received fake
text messages saying the event had been canceled.

The rally was promoted on social media after the Dec. 17 announcement of
renewed diplomatic ties between Washington and Havana. Hundreds of
people said they planned to attend even though Cuban authorities denied
permission to organizers, headed by prominent Cuban artist Tania Bruguera.

Sister's claims

Bruguera's sister Deborah, citing sources in Havana, said Bruguera was
arrested at her home at 10 a.m. "after having State Security agents
knock on the front door of her residence for five consecutive hours."

Bruguera was then taken to the headquarters of the Cuban Intelligence
Service, Deborah Bruguera said.

"Her family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues from the art world, and
citizens are extremely worried because we don't know where she's at
right now and what state she's in. She was not allowed to be accompanied
by a lawyer at the time that she was detained, either," said Deborah
Bruguera, who added that "the Cuban government is responsible" for any
harm done to her sister.

Bruguera scheduled the performance, which would feature an open
microphone format and invite people to discuss the future of Cuba in the
symbolic Plaza de la Revolución, for Tuesday at 3 p.m. #YoTambienExigo
was in charge of spreading the word about the event and had lost contact
with Bruguera early Tuesday.

Bruguera met with Cuba's National Council of Fine Arts President Ruben
del Valle for more than three hours Saturday to try to obtain official
permission for the event to no avail.

A posting on the government-controlled website, The Jiribilla, lambasted
the #YoTambienExijo rally as "a sham."

Bruguera, who refers to the event as "performance" art, said the idea
came from a letter she wrote to President Barack Obama, Cuban leader
Raúl Castro and Pope Francis.

She demanded that all Cubans have a right to stake their claim on the
future of the island and also have a right to express their opinions
through peaceful demonstrations in favor or against government action
without "being punished."

After Tuesday's proceedings, Assistant Secretary of State Roberta
Jacobson, who will visit Cuba in January, condemned the detentions in a
message on Twitter and reiterated that freedom of expression "remains
core of U.S. policy" on Cuba.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ross-Lehtinen, R-Miami, also posted a message on
Twitter to President Barack Obama informing him of the detentions and
warning him that "oppression in Cuba will not change as long as the
Castro brothers hold power."

Events demonstrating solidarity with Tania Bruguera were held
simultaneously in Miami and New York. Despite the support that the
#YoTambienExijo group has found in social media campaigns, its efforts
to hold public gatherings involving self-expression have been restrained
in a country were most people don't have access to the Internet.

Bruguera asked Cuba's National Council for Mixed Media Arts (CNAP) to
send information about the event to the media and to the state-run
television channel. Her request was denied.

Bruguera, who lives in the United States, has built a career
internationally through the creation of political art.

In 2013, she was consulted as an expert in a United Nations report about
the right to freedom and freedom of artistic expression.

In an interview with el Nuevo Herald, the artist emphasized the
significance of the rally that was to be held in the Plaza.

"Through art, spaces of tolerance that perhaps don't yet exist in real
life can be created and people can experiment with different ways of
behaving," she said.

another view

Cuba art institutions have a different perception of art.

In an official news release on Monday, the CNAP said holding the rally
was "unacceptable" and "especially considering the symbolic space, the
Plaza de la Revolución, and considering the ample press coverage and the
manipulation it has obtained in counterrevolution media outlets."

The CNAP said that the artist could hold the event in "a cultural
institution of prestige in the arena of visual art."

Since it is "an art related activity," it said, "that should be it's
natural stage."

The vision of Americans running around Havana wielding their credit
cards has been with me since President Barack Obama announced his
historic change in U.S.-Cuba policy two weeks ago.

Let me tell you about the time I bought freedom with my Visa card.

New Year's Eve. Buenos Aires. 2004.

I was visiting my exiled Cuban cousin and we planned to ring in the new
year at Tocororo, one of the city's trendy restaurants in the waterfront
Puerto Madero district. A Cuban band was the draw and my Visa card had
bought reservations for dinner, live music, free-flowing champagne and
party favors.

We would make up for all the fin de año celebrations we had missed
growing up apart. This night would be the closest thing to experiencing
the legendary pre-Castro end-of-year parties in Cuba that I knew only
from photographs.

If we couldn't live it up at the famed Tropicana of our parents'
generation, we could at least claim Tocororo, a place of
Casablanca-style allure named after Cuba's national bird. It was managed
by local Cubans, although one never could pin down ownership
(Argentines? Cuban exiles? Capitalist commies connected to the Cuban
embassy? All of the above? So went the gossip.…)

On Dec. 30, however, tragedy struck a Buenos Aires neighborhood: 194
young people were killed in a fire.

The blaze broke out at the Cromañón Republic nightclub during a rock
concert after a flare was set off, igniting foam and plastic nets in the
ceiling and flammable decorations. Concert-goers couldn't find exits or
fire extinguishers. Some doors had been chained to keep people from
getting in without paying. None of the code violations and cheap
construction, it was soon discovered, had kept the owner from getting
government permits to operate.

President Néstor Kirchner's response to the deaths was to declare three
days of official national mourning. I had no idea that this meant
obligatory grieving behavior for everyone, including tourists.

We knew of the tragedy and the edict, but not — as the outrage grew over
the government corruption's role in the tragedy — that Kirchner had
ordered all nightclubs and concert venues closed and banned restaurants
like Tocororo from hosting performers.

We were seated at our table when the musicians went on the stage and
announced that they weren't being allowed to perform. A collective gasp
and rounds of protests were heard — but nothing, we were told, could
change the decision. No music was allowed in a public place — New Year's
Eve be damned.

I went to speak to the restaurant manager. I appealed first on emotional
grounds, offering my condolences but adding that our ruined New Year's
Eve wasn't going to bring anyone back or solve any problems, and I
explained how much the night meant to us, reunited after 34 years.

When that didn't work, I appealed on political grounds. Demagoguery is
the trademark of ineffective leaders, I argued. "The president is trying
to cover up his government's failure to protect its citizens by
pandering to the aggrieved population. Isn't this a free country? What
legal right does a president have to forbid our celebration?"

When that didn't work either, I told him that we would go home, where we
could play music, and he would have to refund us the deposit. He said he
couldn't do that.

I whipped out my cell phone and told him I would call my Visa card and
report that he wasn't delivering the promised services — and put a hold
on his payment.

"And I'm calling my American Express card too!" chimed in another
customer behind me, who turned out to be another Cuban-American from
Miami hosting a table packed with family.

The manager then asked for a few minutes to see what he could do. He
went outside and huddled with police officers who had been stationed
outside to enforce the no-music edict.

After the manager returned, the police strolled away and we never saw
them again.

In no time, the band took the stage, and the singer proclaimed, "Señoras
y señores, there is music."

A bolero broke the ice, and for the rest of the night, there was music.
We danced with our partners, with strangers, and on stage with the band.
It was an unforgettable New Year's Eve made all the more special by the
heady victory of sweet freedom — even if it was purchased.

Ten years later, President Obama has announced his intention to make it
lawful for American credit and debit cards to make their debut in Cuba.

The demagogues should be shaking in their boots. We're a freedom-loving
army — and we wield our credit cards better than weapons.

The Cuban artist Tania Bruguera, who splits her time between the United
States and Havana, traveled to Cuba in recent days seeking to pull off a
bold experiment. She called on Cubans from all walks of life to meet at
Havana's iconic Revolution Square on Tuesday at 3 p.m., where they would
take turns at a microphone to outline their vision for the new era in
the country. Word of the event, which was billed as both a performance
and a street protest, was shared on social media using the hashtag
#YoTambiénExijo, which means "I also demand."

Ms. Bruguera's plan was the first test of whether the Obama
administration's decision to normalize relations with Cuba earlier this
month would prod the Castro regime to be more tolerant of critical
voices. Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, the government barred
prominent critics, including Ms. Bruguera, from reaching the square.
Some were detained and others were reportedly prevented from leaving
their homes. In the end, the performance wasn't held.

Authorities in Cuba appear to have wrestled with how to prevent Ms.
Bruguera's project from turning into a mass gathering of critics. They
allowed her to travel to the island, though she had publicized her
project well in advance. In recent days, officials from the state-run
arts council summoned her for a meeting. In a statement, the council
said it had made clear to her that her plan was "unacceptable," because
of the location and the "ample media coverage" in outlets that are
critical of the government. Officials proposed that the event be held
instead at a cultural site, according to the statement, and said that
the government would "reserve the right" to bar people whose "sole
interest is to be provocative."

It became clear early on Tuesday which people authorities had in mind.
State security personnel detained journalist Reinaldo Escobar, the
husband of popular dissident blogger Yoani Sánchez, outside their home
and prevented her from leaving, according to the digital news site the
couple runs, 14yMedio. Eliécer Ávila, a young government critic who
leads the political movement 'Somos +' — which means, "there are more of
us," was taken into custody alongside Mr. Escobar.

By stifling critical voices, the Cuban government is showing its
unwillingness to tolerate basic freedoms most citizens in the hemisphere
enjoy. This move, unfortunately, will amplify the criticisms of those
who opposed Mr. Obama's historic shift on Cuba policy.

Heavy-handed tactics by the Castro government will give them ammunition
next year, when Republicans will control both chambers of Congress, to
stymie the Obama administration's steps to ease the embargo through
executive authority and dim the prospects of legislative change to pare
back the web of sanctions Washington imposes on Cuba. That result would
be a shame and, in the long run, self-defeating for Havana.

HAVANA TIMES — Cuban society has experienced the class struggle in a
particularly intense manner. In 1961, the government announced it was
building socialism. Currently, this same government has undertaken a
program of reforms allegedly aimed at updating the system and making
socialism "prosperous and sustainable."

Harsh observers could well point out that, as part of this reform
process, the country has rescued policies and mechanisms that existed in
the past. At a certain point in time, these mechanisms (such as the
market, foreign investment and private enterprises) were banned as
elements that were noxious for the new system and the new human being
that was being forged.

An even harsher observer could point out that part of Cuba's
intelligentsia has taken to heart the remark made by former President
Fidel Castro, to the effect that it is foolish to claim to know how to
build socialism.

Other observers have severely criticized the supposedly socialist nature
of Cuba's system. These critics point out that the fact the means of
production aren't legally owned by individuals isn't enough to affirm a
system is socialist. They argue that, if the means of production are
managed by a reduced caste of individuals grouped around State
apparatuses, if this class behaves with discretion and cannot be
questioned or removed by workers, if the fruits of labor are managed in
a non-transparent fashion by these same elites and if, as a result of
the above, inequalities in terms of quality of life and the
socio-political significance of human beings are reproduced, what we
have is simply another form of capitalism and exploitation.

Under these conditions, the State enterprise reproduces the alienation
of the proletariat just as capitalism does. It is no accident that
government politicians and philosophers have wracked their brains for
years, and continue to bemoan the fact that the majority of workers do
not feel they actually control the means of production. An unwanted
result of this is the enthusiastic misappropriation of State resources
by anyone in a position to do so, and the complete lack of interest in
preventing this shown by other workers.

In the course of decades, the government has launched innumerable
campaigns of a moral and political nature. It has conducted all manner
of social experiments through administrative, Party and trade union
structures…and met with the same, sterile results. I would add that this
should come as no surprise to anyone with basic knowledge of the
principles of political economy and Marxism.

The case of agriculture is particularly representative of this.
Following the Agrarian Reform of 1959, a great many plots of land came
under the administration of so-called "State farms." As the name
suggests, these belonged to the State and were rigidly administered by
the Ministry of Agriculture bureaucracy.

According to the idealistic conceptions of Fidel Castro, these farms,
said to belong "to the entire people," were the most genuinely socialist
enterprises in the world. There, the New Man would be forged, people
would work selflessly for the common good, etc., etc. Workers on these
farms would report the highest levels of productivity. They would become
responsible individuals and strongly feel they controlled the means of
production – the lands, machinery, facilities and resources employed in
agricultural production. These farms would prosper and supply the
country with a wealth of food and other products.

Reality, impertinent as always, would prove Castro wrong. These people's
farms broke all imaginable records in terms of unproductiveness,
wastefulness and the misappropriation of supplies. As State subsidies
decreased, their plots of land became covered with marabou brush – even
before the workers abandoned the farms en masse.

In 1994, the Basic Units for Cooperative Production (UBPC) were created.
These were an ill-conceived attempt at offering farm workers a degree of
autonomy and sense of ownership. So many bureaucratic restrictions were
applied on these that the same disastrous practices of old continued.
Suffice it to mention that, in these supposed cooperatives, the
president of the collective was imposed on farmers from above. Farmers
at base level still were denied the right to decide what to produce, how
to do so, who to sell to and who to buy from.

In 2012, a series of measures aimed at strengthening the UBPCs were
announced. These were aimed at rectifying the conceptual problems of
1994, offering the farms true autonomy and finally giving workers the
sense that they controlled production. It is probably still too soon to
properly evaluate the results of this, but we have a number of
interesting lessons we can turn to.

A metaphor we could toy with is to consider Cuba's industries as a
series of companies that are very similar to those agricultural units,
covered with a variety of urban marabou. The nationalization process
undertaken as of 1959 turned them into that oxymoron, companies "of the
people" strictly subordinate to the State bureaucracy.

No subsequent measure or experiment has been implemented with enough
wisdom and courage to grant worker collectives property rights. In part,
such ownership has oscillated between the center and periphery of the
command chain, but such oscillations haven't altered the vertical and
authoritarian logic behind everything. The government is even willing to
grant foreign capitalists such rights, but it isn't clear whether it is
willing to give Cuban entrepreneurs the same privileges. It never favors
the local working class, the only ones capable of building a socialist
society.

The nature of the ownership over the means of production is what
determines the nature of the social system, as Marx and common sense
tell us. Ownership, in turn, depends on the exercise of property rights,
not on abstract declarations made by political and administrative
superstructures. Now that we are entering a new stage that is full of
uncertainty, it would be worthwhile to ask ourselves how these issues
are handled.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Five Years of "Crossing the Barbed Wire": How Long Should I Continue? /
Luis Felipe Rojas
Posted on December 29, 2014

My baby, my third child, this blog, is five years old and at times I ask
myself this question. How long should I continue? I started writing
against the grain of what a blog was, doing it like a daily without
wi-fi, nor nearby cybercages, but with the recklessness with which one
distributes a samizdat.

I remember, it was December 2009. My brother Orlando Zapata Tamayo #0ZT
began a hunger strike, impelled by the Castro regime to take off the
mask: the arrests and beatings of activists for supporting #0ZT happened
in Holguin and several other cities, one after the other. I wanted my
neighbors to know, the neighborhood snitches, the police, those who were
afraid and those who supported me then and have supported me since, that
it is you, the cyberactivists, the fine people who have accompanied me
in sixty months of words and actions.

Now with the new refrain of "intimate enemies" I paused, passing several
weeks without publishing, listening to my friends, reliving the same
party with such naivety. My parents told me that in 1959 people were
stunned by so many firecrackers and so much sabotage, on January 1st
coming out to salute the rebels, and on the second loudly crying out "To
the wall!" (demanding executions), and on the third beginning to fall
silent, three days after the Cuban Revolution.

Now the road is long because in Palma Soriano, Manzanillo and
Cumanayagua there are still hungry people who know nothing of diplomatic
relations. In Camagüey, my friend Millet continues to have the Rapid
Response Brigades after him every day to prevent him from putting up a
poster against the government or buying kerosene on the black market.
Last weekend they defaced Mirna Buenaventura's house with tar, in
Buenaventura, where people now call the Yankees "the fraternal and
supportive American people."

Now that the Furies have changed their spots there are friends who
stayed inside the fence and are not going to shut their mouths because
they never have. Yannier P. wrote from Guantanamo to tell me, "You don't
have to write for us, we know the horror. Write so that the world will
know the horror to come." I want to send a bouquet of flowers to my
friend Nancy Alfaya, a Christian woman with a bulletproof resistance:
her husband, the writer Jorge Olivera Castillo received 18 years in
prison, but Nancy refuses to stop laughing. In Havana she leads a
workshop against violence against women, is the first to read Olivera's
poems, and goes to church every day in the poor neighborhood where she
lives. I want to send flowers to Nancy but I would not want them to
arrive wilted.

I would like to write an article and travel to shake hands with Manuel
Martinez Leon, in La Jejira in Holguin, with Emiliano Gonzalez in El
Horno, in Bayamo, or Barbaro Tejeda in Mayari. The three are dissidents,
open opponents of the Castro brothers' tropical dictatorship and work
the land from sunrise.

Emiliano has given me interviews seated on a mountain of peanut bags,
and wrote to tell me of the tortured rules of the State cooperatives and
that he dreams of fields of peanuts while they hold him prisoner in
stinking dungeons.

Barbaro has talked with me on a trail where he goes to fish illegally,
to be able to eat and to feed his family. For years the "Watching the
Sea" Detachment — a kind of rapid response brigade with the pretext of
being anti-drug troops— monitors and represses its neighbors in Puerto
Padre, Levisa and Macabi, throughut Cuba. They cannot sell fish, catch
fish or eat fish. They don't know which law prohibits it, but the people
there who talked to me are afraid of breaking the rules. Sometimes
Barbaro Tejeda fries plantains or beans and dreams of a modern fishing rod.

With friends like this my blog will have ten more years of life. Still,
I have to explain to the world why Cuban mothers live without their
children and what the Law of Pre-Criminal Social Dangerousness is; first
I have to learn to write a legal monstrosity of such a package. Ileana,
my Venezuelan friend living in New York doesn't know what Showing
Contempt for the Figure of the Commander-in-Chief is, and I have to
explain with examples.

Many more years of life, of survival, remain to this blog. A house
organized from within and not for elegies without knowing its neighbors,
living in the turbulent and brutal south or north that now appreciates us.

President Obama is basking in global adulation for his decision to
normalize relations with Cuba. But one group is not impressed with
Obama's rapprochement with the totalitarian regime in Havana: the
dissidents on the island who are risking their lives for democracy and
human rights.

Yoani Sánchez, Cuba's most influential dissident blogger, declared that
with Obama's move "Castroism has won." Guillermo Fariñas, a dissident
journalist and winner of the European Union's 2010 Sakharov Prize for
Freedom of Thought, told the Guardian newspaper that Obama's move is "a
disaster." Fariñas, who has conducted 23 hunger strikes to protest Cuban
repression, added, "We live in daily fear that we will be killed by the
fascist government. And now, the U.S. — our ally — turns its back on us
and prefers to sit with our killers."

Ángel Moya, who was recently released from an eight-year prison
sentence, told the New York Times that Obama "betrayed those of us who
are struggling against the Cuban government. There will be more
repression, only this time with the blessing of the United States." Moya
further declared that dissidents "are totally against the easing of the
embargo" because "the government will have more access to technology and
money that can be used against us."

Moya is right. U.S. tourism and investment in Cuba won't help ordinary
Cubans at all; it will help the regime repress them. Here is why: The
Castro brothers are the nation's sole employer. Virtually everyone in
Cuba works for the state. The regime's monopoly on employment is a
source of political control. Cubans are dependent on the Castros for
everything — work, housing, education, food — and can see those things
taken away for the slightest expression of counterrevolutionary sentiment.

This means that if U.S. businesses invest in Cuba, they would have to
partner with the Castro brothers. They would not be allowed to hire
Cuban workers directly or pay them in U.S. dollars. They would have to
pay the Castro regime as much as $10,000 per worker. The regime then
would give the worker a few hundred worthless Cuban pesos and pocket the
rest. So rather than helping ordinary Cubans become independent of the
state, U.S. businesses will directly subsidize the Castro police state,
while using what effectively amounts to Cuban slave labor.

That is reason enough to bar U.S. investment in Cuba. But the other
reason Cuban dissidents oppose Obama's move is that he has given up U.S.
leverage to influence a post-Castro democratic transition. As Rebecca
Roja, a dissident who said the secret police knocked out two of her
teeth during beatings, told the Guardian: "The Castros got what they
wanted from the U.S. Now they have no incentive to change."

After five decades, it is clear the Castros were never going to follow
in the footsteps of the regime in Burma (also known as Myanmar), which
negotiated a loosening of repression in exchange for a lifting of
sanctions and normalization of relations. But those who succeed the
Castros were likely to do so once the brothers were gone. Virtually
everyone on the island — both inside and outside the regime — was
waiting for the Castros to finally die so that the process of
normalizing economic and political ties could finally begin.

Now the regime doesn't have to wait or give anything in return — because
Obama has unilaterally given the Cuban regime the political recognition
it was desperately seeking. Obama has given the Castros legitimacy and
hopes to soon unleash a flood of tourists and business investment that
will only help the regime maintain its totalitarian system. The
president apparently did not even seek any liberalization from Havana in
exchange — no agreement to allow a free press, independent political
parties, free market reforms or free elections, much less to end
repression against dissent.

Fortunately, Obama was constrained from lifting the embargo entirely
because Congress codified it in 1996 as part of the Helms-Burton Act.
The complete lifting of economic sanctions on the Castros is conditioned
by law on a post-Castro regime taking meaningful steps to dismantle the
police state and move toward democracy and a free market economy.

The remaining legal restrictions on trade with Cuba are the last piece
of leverage the United States has to press for democratic change on the
island when the Castros are gone. Congress should listen to the
dissidents on the island and refuse to go along with any further
loosening of economic sanctions unless real democratic change occurs in
Cuba.

The United States should not give away its last bit of leverage just as
time prepares to do what the embargo could not — bring about the end of
the Castro regime.

Cuba-US detente upends life for Cuban dissidents
By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN and ANDREA RODRIGUEZ

HAVANA (AP) — President Barack Obama told the world this month that
engaging Cuba is the best way to strengthen people pushing for greater
freedom on the island.

Less than two weeks after it was announced, the U.S.-Cuba detente is
upending the civil society Obama hopes to strengthen. The prospect of
engagement between the two Cold War antagonists seems to be undercutting
the island's hard-line dissidents while boosting more moderate reformers
who want to push President Raul Castro gradually toward granting
citizens more liberties.

The traditional dissidents say they feel betrayed by a new U.S. policy
of negotiation with a government that Washington and the U.S.-backed
opponents worked for decades to undermine. They say they fear that
detente serves the Castro administration's aspiration of following China
and Vietnam by improving the economy without conceding citizens
significantly greater freedoms.

"I think President Obama made a mistake," said Berta Soler, head of the
Ladies in White, Cuba's best-known dissident group. "Cuba won't change
while the Castros are around. There will be positive changes for the
government of Cuba, but not for the Cuban people."

Moderates say the new balance of power inside the small, fractious world
of Cuba's opposition will produce political change by offering Castro a
type of engagement that's harder to reject: a negotiated, more
controlled opening meant to avoid the sort of disorderly transition that
scarred the former Soviet Union and, more recently, the countries of the
Arab Spring.

"Destabilization, disorder, anarchy, that's never been on the agenda in
the minds of Cubans, and whoever has this agenda isn't going to be able
to find space," said Eliezer Avila, a 29-year-old computer engineer who
leads We Are More, a small, year-old opposition group pushing for
economic reform and political pluralism.

What's unknown is whether the Cuban government will engage with the
newly energized, more moderate members of civil society, or continue to
sharply limit free speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of
association as threats to the country's single-party system. Raul Castro
told Cuba's National Assembly Dec. 20 that warmer relations with the
U.S. would not change the system.

A major test will come during April's Summit of the Americas in Panama,
a gathering of Western Hemispheric leaders where Obama and Raul Castro
are expected to meet. A forum including figures from civil society
inside Cuba is to be organized on the sidelines, and seems likely to
spawn debate between the U.S. and Cuba, and among reformers from the island.

"There will be some negotiations or discussions behind the scenes as to
who gets invited, I would imagine," said Richard Feinberg, a specialist
in U.S.-Cuban relations at the University of California, San Diego.

Reform-minded Cubans have already begun testing the boundaries of free
speech and association under the new relationship. Expatriate artist
Tania Bruguera returned to Cuba Friday to organize a pro-reform
performance piece Tuesday in the Plaza of the Revolution, the symbolic
center of the Cuban government.

Bruguera was meeting with government officials Monday to request
permission for the event. But Bruguera has said she will go ahead even
without it, setting up a potential confrontation between young backers
of the event and government supporters who consider it an affront to
revolutionary values.

Pro-government bloggers have been attacking Bruguera on blogs and
Twitter since her arrival. Around midday Monday, Cuban cellphones
received mysterious messages from a Florida area code offering cheap
beer to those at the plaza around the time of Bruguera's event, which
will feature an open microphone for anyone wanting to discuss their
complaints and aspirations for Cuba's future.

I have long been reporting on Castro-ruled Cuba and, indeed, was there
not long after Fidel Castro had taken over the country. What became
clear, as the number of Castro's political prisoners increased, was that
his revolutionary Cuba was a dictatorship, like the regime he had ousted.
After I wrote that, a member of his administration rebuked me for my
rank ignorance.
I responded by saying that he knew that if I were a Cuban in Cuba, I
would be in prison.
Later, at the United Nations, I was one of a number of reporters
interviewing Che Guevara, the young, dashing Latin American
revolutionary who had acquired fans among many American college students.
Sitting by his side that day was a translator; we had been told he could
not conduct an interview in English.
I asked him: "Mr. Guevara, can you see at any time in the future when
there might be elections by freedom of choice in Cuba?"
Without waiting for the translator, Guevara burst out laughing, saying:
"Aqui? In Cuba?"
I kept reporting -- often using sources from within Cuba that I cannot,
for their sake, name -- details about the impact of the dictatorship.
For example, kids who heard their parents criticize Fidel were required
to inform the authorities.
Currently, Cuba is under the active leadership of Raul Castro, who is
not markedly different from his brother.
In The Wall Street Journal last week, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whose
parents fled Cuba to live here in freedom, declares "it has been the
policy and law of the U.S. to make clear that re-establishing diplomatic
and economic relations with Cuba is possible -- but only once the Cuban
government stops jailing political opponents, protects free speech, and
allows independent political parties to be formed and to participate in
free and fair elections" ("A Victory for Oppression," Marco Rubio, The
Wall Street Journal, Dec. 17).
"The opportunity for Cuba to normalize relations with the U.S. has
always been there, but the Castro regime has never been interested in
changing its ways.
"Now, thanks to President Obama's concessions, the regime in Cuba won't
have to change."
I can still hear Che Guevara laughing at my question about the future of
free elections there. Of course, there'll be changes in the economy, but
I continue to have regular access to news from inside Cuba of the Castro
brothers' stifling dissent. I am still trying to establish indirect
contact and even talk with some of the prisoners I know.
In The Washington Post, Philip Rucker reports on Kentucky Sen. Rand
Paul's and Rubio's opposing views on U.S.-Cuba relations, "evidence of a
growing GOP rift over foreign affairs that could shape the party's 2016
presidential primaries" ("In Paul-Rubio feud over Cuba, a preview of
GOP's 2016 foreign policy debate," Philip Rucker, The Washington Post,
Dec. 19).
Rucker cites Paul's Dec. 19 op-ed in Time magazine, where the senator
wrote: "Communism can't survive the captivating allure of capitalism.
Let's overwhelm the Castro regime with iPhones, iPads, American cars and
American ingenuity" ("Cuba Isolationists Just Don't Get It," Rand Paul,
Time magazine, Dec. 19).
Meanwhile, Rucker highlighted Rubio's criticism of Obama's welcome to
the Castros: "It's just another concession to a tyranny by the Obama
administration, rather than a defense of every universal and inalienable
right that our country was founded on and stands for."
Well, our presidents and members of Congress hardly ever do fully stand
for those definitions of who we are, but they are supposed to explain
our reason for being.
Speaking of those who defend our "universal and inalienable rights,"
Brothers to the Rescue is an organization of pilots based in Miami that
provides humanitarian aid to Cubans trying to escape their dictatorial
homeland.
Jose Basulto, the group's founder, expressed his frustration with the
president's new Cuba policy to WSVN, a Miami-Fort Lauderdale news
affiliate: "Obama has elected himself as the new king of America, and he
feels free to take any type of actions, even if he has to (bypass) the
justice system of the Unite States."
His is a sentiment that I have expressed many times.
Added Sylvia Iriondo, a Cuban-American human rights activist: "President
Barack Obama's concessions, it's sending the wrong message to the free
world and to the world that terrorists can get away with murder."
Responding to the article in the comments section on WSVN's website,
Alberto Robles asked a question that I also ask of the president: "How
about the thousands of political prisoners in cuban (sic) jails?"
And Miriam De La Pena, the mother of Mario De La Pena, one of four men
whose planes were shot down by the Cuban government during a mission for
Brothers to the Rescue, exclaimed: "I'd like to say that not only do I
feel that I've been slapped in the face by a president, I feel that the
justice system of the United States of America today has suffered a big
blow."
According to WSVN, she said that "as she fought back tears."
In this country, I was surprised and disappointed that libertarians such
as Rand Paul were grateful for Obama's elevation of Cuba. Not only will
the Castro brothers remain free of punishment, but now they are globally
uplifted.
(Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment
and the Bill of Rights. He is a member of the Reporters Committee for
Freedom of the Press, and the Cato Institute, where he is a senior fellow.)